The lower quarter always smelled like someone had boiled bad decisions and poured them into the gutters.
Lyan and Will limped through it anyway.
"Well," Will muttered, one hand on his ribs, the other rubbing at a bruised jaw. "I can safely say I've discovered muscles I never wanted to meet. Everything hurts. My everything has an everything."
"That," Lyan said, cloak shifting around his shoulders as he walked, "is what 'controlled violence' looks like."
Will shot him a flat look. "That tavern was about as controlled as a stable fire."
"You picked the place," Lyan replied. "You said, and I quote, 'somewhere honest, where people hit back.'"
"I wanted to punch something, not discover gravity three times with my face." Will winced as his boot scuffed a loose cobble. "And my ribs. And my pride. And possibly my soul."
